Vancouver World Conference: Educators seek solutions

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NATIONAL

Why do we educate ourselves? What purpose does it serve? Is it just to satisfy our curiosity? Is it just to help us make more money and get a better job?

Do we use education to control social behavior and to dominate others?

These questions faced over 1,500 educators at the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples' Education held in Vancouver, June 8 to 13.

For six days, those who teach and those who develop curriculum shared their dreams, visions, experiences, concerns and methods of dealing with their problems.

Throughout the week, indigenous people from over 17 countries met and discovered they share similar history, similar traditions and similar struggles for independence. They shared how they were overcoming their struggles and going forward to build better communities for themselves, based on strong cultural foundations.

Each country was at a different stage in their development, but all had at least started on the road to change.

In keeping with the cultural theme of the conference, the first two days were spent concentrating on the traditions of Native people. Tuesday (June 9), the delegates were bused to the Squamish Longhouse in Capilano.

Verna Kirkness, co-chairman of the conference and the director of Native education at the University of British Columbia, called the events at the longhouse, "truly a practice and demonstration of Native culture in a living, meaningful way in 1987." The day's events, the prayers, the songs, were carried over into the last four days of the conference. During the remainder of the week, keynote speakers from around the world addressed the areas of tradition, change and survival. They addressed how each of these areas touched and affected indigenous education, in what way each area was important and how they felt it could be integrated into indigenous education.

Tradition was the theme of Wednesday, June 10, and the keynote speakers addressed the need for a culturally-based education system.

Poka Laenui, vice-president of the World Council of Indigenous People, asked the question, "Why do we education ourselves?" He focused on what he considered the most important reason, that of "building continuity of consciousness," or of continuing our culture. This included maintaining the songs, chants, dances and stories or literature that have grown through the ages.

Laenui says, "Education is not found in a cultural vacuum." He adds education is "the foundation for our whole perception of the world." Laenui also says "advocates of a value-free system were advocates of a valueless society."

The day's second keynote speaker was Jeannette Armstrong, a Native educator from the En'owkin Centre in Penticton, B.C. Armstrong took the question of education beyond simply schooling. She says, "We not only need to find the best way to do things to continue life, but we need to learn the practice of living." Armstrong says there is an "instinctive need to continue each species, to pass on the culture from one generation to the other." She says this helps each generation to survive in a healthy way.

Along with the need for traditional, culturally-based education, keynote speakers addressed the area of change and the role it plays in indigenous education. John Kim Bell, chairman of the Canadian Native Arts Foundation, asked the question, "Can we change and still be traditional?" He points out that education isn't the only problem facing indigenous people. He says, "We must deal with all our problem areas at one time." Bell also stresses what was most important to him ? personal human development and the need for parents to motivate their children, to be their role models. He asserts that people need to learn the technology of today to survive.

The day's second keynote speaker was John Mohawk, professor of Native American Studies at the University of Buffalo. Mohawk approached education from a different angle. He spoke a great deal about the Amish people in the United States. Mhawk told how his people had the only successful rural economy in the country.

He related how the Amish "speak their own language, own their own land base, and suffer from none of the same problems being faced by Native Americans." He also spoke of how the Amish had done this without getting involved in the technology of today.

Mohawk says, "Education at its best should do two things: it will empower people and give them confidence in themselves, and it will give them the confidence and ability to know they can decide their own destinies."

Throughout the keynote speeches a common thread could be seen. Each speaker agreed that Native, indigenous people had to be the ones to develop their own education systems.

Workshops carried out Wednesday, Thursday and Friday gave delegates the chance to discover what other countries were doing and to share their solutions and concerns.

In the evenings, culture was shared freely through traditional songs, and dances from participants throughout the world. The final day of the conference gave delegates the opportunity to share what the week had meant to them. Young people expressed a deep desire to be part of the changes happening in Native education, but were disappointed because they were overlooked a number of times.

But, looking past the few problems, the first ever world conference on indigenous people's education can be termed a definite success. For six days educators were drawn together by their common bonds and were bound together by their common goals. All who attended agreed it was a time to stand tall and be proud of who they are.